THE CONSTRUCTION OF THE NARRATOR PERSONA IN HORACE`S SERMONES
THE CONSTRUCTION OF THE NARRATOR PERSONA IN HORACE`S SERMONES

Summary/Abstract: This article seeks to analyze the manner in which the satirist is creating a persona in order to attain a considerable level of influence in his contemporaneity. The satirist`s power to judge and to influence public opinion is to be sought in the construction of the satirical discourse. In this respect, the present article is seeking to analyze how Horace`s Sermones gain an authoritative and judging attitude by relating them with their audience and their patrons (or powerful men). The poetical attitude towards society and political power will be in accordance to the one sustained and promoted by Maecenas, as the patron of the literary circle created around the new sovereign, Octavian Augustus. Satires are gaining sufficient notoriety and influence over its audience (mainly by their capacity to provoke, irritate and incense), in order for Horace not to make use of this discursive technique and develop a persuasive political ideology. In Horace`s works, the literary persona is constructed in accordance with the new political regime of Octavian Augustus which puts his satirical works in a niche between critical, protestant attitude and panegyric content. The ethical and moral aspects are intertwined with the political one, creating the opportunity not only to display a social mirror of the satirist`s acceptance, but to propagate the new imperial ideology. Consequently, the paper seeks to analyze Horace`s methods of constructing a judging, authoritative and powerful attitude through its literary persona.

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